Volunteers in Mission

On Saturday, August 3, RBUMC will send a team of 11 persons to Pitorreal, Mexico for a Volunteers In Missions work-trip.  The group, led by team leader Margo Cardos will do  finishing work on the dining hall at a United Methodist Camp in the Copper Canyon Mountain region.  The Missouri area made a commitment several years ago to build this camp "from the ground up."  Our team is the last team scheduled to go and it is hoped that we will be able to complete the work. Other team members include Lillian Ball, Jean Fetters, Wendy Brownson (Jean's daughter who will serve as interpreter), Suzie
Norris, Court Fischer, Ron Hess, Steve Walker, Larry Friedberg, Russell Brown and Dustin Cooper.  The team will return on Saturday, August 10th.

Field Report 1 
Monday - August 5 

Hello friends and loved ones; I should probably not start off by saying it is a cool 68 degrees atnoon here in Pitorreal at noon as I write this. You might not appreciate that if you are having the really hot weather that was predicted for K.C. We are here and on the job... although not without a little bit of adventure. We had some pretty severe thunderstorms happening in Houston
on Saturday night as our flight was coming in to land. The pilot was told to circle the airport until it cleared up. We finally landed after interminable circling and found out later that we were within about two minutes of being diverted to San Antonio. I am not sure how we would have handled that, but once again... God provided. Fortunately there was a three hour layover between flights, so we really didn't lose any connections at all. We finally got to the hotel rooms (4 for all 11 of us) in Chihuahua at about midnight and experienced a very short night as we had a 6:00 a.m. train to catch the next morning. More challenges as the man at the train station had no record of reservations for us or tickets on hold. Thank goodness for credit cards! We had an absolutely beautiful, 7 hour train ride from Chihuahua to Pitorreal with gorgeous mountain scenery and brilliantly colored rainbows escorting us most of the way. We passed by village after village of typical Mexican rural settings where poverty and peacefulness seemed to mingle side-by-side. This morning (Monday) the work begins! We will be building tables and benches and chinking (technical construction term) the cracks between the logs in the main dining hall building at the camp. So far, it seems that Jean Fetters and Lillian have the best approach to the chinking technique. Oddly enough there is another team here from Atlanta that is building another church building for Obed, the local pastor. I think they will be eating with us at Jack and Marie's house, but that has not been made clear to us yet. That is all for now. We continue to be reminded regularly that God does provide and that God's love is touching the lives of all involved in this wonderful project. Any email messages for the team can be sent to this return address and I will pass them along.

As we say in Mexico...
via con dios!

Your faithful servant,
- Russell B.

Field Report 2
Friday - August 9
Greetings from your friendly mission team in Mexico!
It is now Friday and we have finished our work for the week. All are looking anxiously forward to flush toilets, hot showers and a little strawberry and cream dessert here in Creel. We apologize for only sending two reports, but there were only two trips into town! Our fair weather continues, although we experienced one of the heaviest rain showers any of us have ever seen... here or there. It put a little damper on the steaks Jack was cooking on the grill... especially when a bolt of lightning hit the transformer and knocked out all the power. But we had a nice candlelight dinner with the other mission team (from
the Atlanta area) and a wonderful communion service performed by the newly installed Methodist bishop for the area. He has been here this week overseeing one of the first sessions at the camp we have been building. There have been about 50 children running around while we work. At first we thought it would be an inconvenience to us, but it was really good to see the camp being used for the purpose for which it was intended. We even interacted a little with the kids a bit... throwing a football around and looking at the frogs they had caught.

We miss all of you and are anxious to see you on our return on Saturday. We have seen the Lord do some amazing things this week during our stay. Please make sure to add Jack and Marie and Obed and Eunice to your prayers on a regular basis. They are doing amazing things here with so few resources. Truly shining examples of faith in action.

Blessings,

- Russell B.
Your humble correspondent

P.S. I love you Joanie and miss you a LOT!